The moment you step into what you are sure is the territory of a foreign wolf pack, though its name is, for the moment, unknown to you, you feel the air shift and tense - imperceptibly, but the change is still, nonetheless, noticeable, and it sents your fur bristling.

Perhaps what you feel is imagined, your expectations so strong that they have come to life, become reality; or perhaps it really is what happened the moment you set foot into lands that aren't yours, crossing an invisible boundary with no more than a brief moment of hesitation deterring you. There's no way to tell, no concrete evidence to solidify your halfhearted guesses.

Ahead of you loom, strangely ominously, a large field over which a fine layer of snow has settled like dust; the comparison makes you think of old shelves in a long-abandoned library, its contents having gone untouched for so long that dust has made a permanent home on the books' covers, obscuring the title that might've, in another world, revealed the secrets that lay between the pages. It's like this pack hasn't interacted with the world in a long, long time, and you're the first in a while.

With a deep breath, you step forward, head held high and brave, though fine tremors racing through your legs, your paws, reveal otherwise; the mountains in the distance are strangely forbidding, scraping at the sky with jagged edges; thick clouds ring their snowy peaks, clouds that stretch through the sky, allowing only glimpses of grey to peek through. Snow falls from the sky in gentle flakes, melting into your warm fur, and you look up into the dim heavens.

That move, that moment of distraction, was to be your undoing - as you flick your gaze above powerful claws sink into your side (your left, you note absentmindedly; the side that bore an old scar), sending you toppling to the ground; you fought at first, struggling and thrashing, lashing out with your claws, but the subject of your desperate assault remains unmoved, staring down at you with grey eyes as cold and dull as the wintry sky above that's suspended, mockingly, above you, watching but not doing anything to help you.

"You have trespassed."

First it begins as a whisper that you aren't sure you have heard correctly; then it echoes again and again around you, giving the impression of a vast distance, though in reality it's just wolves emerging from the snowy forest that ring the clearing, murmuring the same words over and over again, slowly growing in volume until the syllables wrap, suffocatingly, around your throat.

"I have trespassed," you whisper, resigned and confused and scared all at once. "I," you begin, in an attempt to defend yourself, but you find your quivering voice dying in your throat.

You stare at the snowy souls that surround you; they are of varying size, with some small and swift and nimble, while others are big and mighty and powerful. All of them bear pelts of grey and black and white, as if ash and snow had been scattered over their bodies, old markers carrying the vestiges of a once-vibrant life.

"You must face the consequences."

"I must, I must," you echo dully, not quite comprehending what you're saying. Everything's sliding out of focus - slowly, at a relaxed pace, or at least, until a paw knocks solidly against the side of your head and

everything

-

To my friends (in no particular order) -

Thank you for existing. You guys are wonderful.

-

Updated 2/1/2020